Upgrades
Buying a more sophisticated supersonic fighter, like the F-15 Eagle or Panavia Tornado, was too expensive and instead, the THK decided to upgrade its Phantom fleet with improvements to avionics and structure, but not to the engines. In August 1995, after a hotly contested competition with DASA (F-4 ICE), IAI was awarded a USD600M contract to upgrade 54 F-4Es to Phantom 2000s. The first 26 aircraft were rebuilt in Israel, and the other 28 in Turkey.
Read more about this topic: Mc Donnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II Non-U.S. Operators, Turkey